Hey, did you hear the one abut the fantasy owner who waited eight months for another season, then lost their first game before any of their players took the field?
I'm sure that's not very funny. It sounds like a nightmare. But for some owners who faced Peyton Manning and Demaryius Thomas last Thursday, it was reality.
Depending on the scoring system, a fantasy owner could have woken up Friday morning down 90-0, or worse. Think about that. It could be 90-0, and they'd have a couple of days to think about it before getting a chance to see any of their own players score.
Just looking at your league's scores, you can probably see which teams had the best Broncos. And while it doesn't seem very helpful to point out that it's just one game, that's the exact truth. The circumstances -- the first week of the fantasy season, and the first NFL contest in the national spotlight days before the rest of the games -- make it seem worse than it really is. If you were on the losing end of those match ups, it's no better or worse than losing by four points or 14 points. And for purposes of the playoffs, that loss making you 0-1 doesn't count any more than a loss that drops you to 4-2 or 6-6. You might even argue it's better psychologically, because no fantasy teams were eliminated from playoff contention this weekend.
And if you've played fantasy football for any length of time, you know that these things happen. I don't mean a player throwing seven touchdowns in one game, of course. That doesn't happen very often. I mean getting buried by one or two players, making your team's performances moot. And while some teams actually crawled their way out of a Thursday deficit thanks to guys like Anquan Boldin or Victor Cruz, many others simply watched top players like Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant and Doug Martin stumble their way through a below-average performance. And if you started David Wilson, well, let's not even go there.
The point is, that wasn't that player or that game that will cost you a title. Your path to success or failure will be determined by what happens in the next few months, not what happened last Thursday. That holds true even if you own Manning and Thomas. You have to be pleased with week 1, and some of your players seem to have unlimited ceilings. But you're still just 1-0, and you can't bank those scores for future weeks, when you might need them. This week's winners can't get too high, and the losers can't get too low. Not with the rest of the season ahead of you.
Besides, if you were blown out in week 1 you probably felt bad and maybe didn't finish watching the Thursday night game. But imagine if you had to play in it. What do you think the visitor's locker room was like if you were a Baltimore Raven? Not only did you get humiliated on national television, your receiving corps looks like a weak spot that will carry over the rest of the season. And then -- just to make things worse -- you watched your former teammate demolish the Packers as a San Francisco 49er. You think Baltimore would like to have Boldin's services again? Would they be confident if they faced the 49ers in next year's Super Bowl? Do the Ravens look like a Super Bowl team, or even a playoff team right now?
Sure, it's just one game for them, too. Hard to count out the defending Super Bowl champion. But in real football they have an actual defense that has to stop the opponent, and they don't have the luxury of picking the best players across the entire league for their roster. I wouldn't dismiss the Ravens, but as a fantasy owner you're in a better position to bounce back and put a tough loss behind you. And if you faced an avalanche of points you couldn't overcome in week 1, I hope you find redemption in week 2.
Did you face (or deliver) a ton of points in week 1? Share your thoughts on how you fared below.